Holocaust provides backdrop for question of forgiveness

by Kel Kanady

Posted:
07/22/2014 03:00:22 AM PDT

Updated:
07/22/2014 02:02:03 PM PDT

In "The Storyteller," author Jodi Picoult explores the power of forgiveness and acts that may be beyond redemption.

Sage Singer is a baker who has two scars: an exterior one on her face and an interior one from the death of her mother. At her grief support group she meets Josef Weber, an elderly man who grieves the loss of his wife. These two sad souls form a connection that is rocked one day when Josef asks Sage to help him die.

Josef shows Sage a photograph of him from World War II -- in his Nazi uniform and this leads Sage to her Jewish grandmother Minka, a Holocaust survivor. Could this beloved old man, the grandfatherly Little League umpire respected by the community, be the same man described by Minka?

Picoult uses four storylines to tell the tale. Readers hear the perspective of Josef beginning with his days in Hitler Youth, and Minka, graphically detailing her time in the ghetto and then in concentration camps. Minka began writing a story (a thinly veiled allegory) when she was a young girl and continued the story throughout her time of captivity. In addition to that story, Sage tells her story of love and loss.

At times, the World War II stories seem like compilations of stories told in various books, films and documentaries. Though somewhat retread storylines, the question of forgiveness is interesting and saves the novel.

Can years of good deeds remove the stain of blood from someone's hands? Using the different religious and personal perspectives of her characters, Picoult explores the facets of forgiveness.

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Sage works with Leo, a Nazi hunter from the FBI who states that by Jewish law, a person can only be forgiven by the one against whom he wronged. Murder, therefore, is an unforgivable act as the one person who can grant forgiveness is no longer available.

Sage's boss Mary is Catholic and says, "Forgiving isn't something you do for someone else. It's something you do for yourself." And, "The only person who suffers when you squirrel away all that hate, is you."

After hearing these perspectives along with the thoughts of her grandmother, Sage has a moral decision to make. Can she, on behalf of her grandmother, forgive the deeds of Josef? Or on behalf of the many lives taken, can she comply with Josef's wishes and assist his suicide?

Recommendation: Interesting read with short, attention-grabbing chapters in a typical Picoult style. This novel is not life-altering, but provides fodder for discussion. It is available through the Fremont, Newark and Milpitas libraries.